The deep echoing thud of the heavy stone door practically slamming behind them as they fled into the main chamber of the trapper’s hall pulled every eye towards the trio, who stood bent over with their hands on knees panting after the mad dash from the confines of the lab. Some smartly took this as a sign that they’d be better off anywhere else, their tools clattering to the floor as they too fled punctuating the low base of the door with a cacophony of lighter sounds. Others rushed towards the potential hazard that was Elder Bolst, to render aid should it be required. One, a guard well out of his league should the worst come to pass, instead chose to take up his spear and face it bravely. Though what a stone headed spear could do in the face of what lurked behind those doors, besides becoming additional shrapnel that is, was anyone’s guess.

  Stepping up in front of Bolst and raising her voice to echo across the cavern, Kora bellowed out, “This is an Oleander incident people, you know what to do.” With her mention of the dreaded ‘O’ word, everyone, even the few workers who had kept to their work when the three first burst in, turned tail and scattered. Each fled to whatever doorway or gate happened to be closest. They however didn’t flee. Kori watched as every entrance to the workshop was slammed closed and barred. Their task done the workers formed an orderly line awaiting instruction.

  Bolst quickly took charge of the situation, orders barked out to one trapper after another in quick succession. “Fau, go fetch Elder Blonc and Elder Ylst, they should still be at the training yards. Wyb, Elder Korse, try the hatchery. Czh, Check the stockroom, I need a merchant, Har if you can find him.” Those named took off at a sprint the moment Bolst turned to address someone else. Looking back to the guard still menacingly pointing his spear at a stone door, “Otr, stop that, the door isn’t the problem.” Glaring at the young man, “No, the problem is anyone who tries to go in.”

  Taking a deep breath before he shouted out into the chamber, “The lab is off limits until further notice.” Definitely louder than necessary, but he got the point across. Looking back to the very nervous guard, “Stop anyone except me entering,” After a glance to his protégé, “Even Kora.” He was surprised to see her give him a nod of acknowledgement at that, having expected at least a little pushback. Pointing down to the spear in Otr’s hand, “Use that thing if anyone tries to push past. Even another Elder.” The guard’s eyes bulged at the implication of the command, but he still nodded before squaring his shoulders and taking up a position in the middle of the doorway with the meanest look he could muster on his face. Which to be fair was at least a little intimidating.

  Kori’s eyes widened as she watched the events unfold across the room, the grim determination of the gathered kobolds who were all dealing with an unknown danger, and doing so in a more controlled manner than she thought herself capable of. Most of her focus remained on the little stand of still warm flasks gripped between her hands. Her hold on it like she was grasping the wriggling menace of a centipede all over again. Firm and steady while trying to keep them as far away from her as physically possible. For the first time, the brief thought of the white skull centipede brought a smile to her face. It was still in the room with the horror she had wrought.

  “Uhm, Bolst?” Calling his attention once he’d finished roaring out orders, “What should I do with these?”

  He glanced at her momentarily before turning back to the assembled trappers, “Which testing room is the least cluttered?” Getting a quick response that the two was the best choice he quickly ordered everyone idle to remove anything and everything flammable from two. “Kori, have a seat over there,” Pointing off to the side far away from anyone, “And wait a bit. If changes with those flasks, scream your little lungs out, set them down, and run. Got it?”

  She gave him a nod before beginning to slowly walk over to the designated spot, plopping herself down once she was there to wait.

  While all of the rest was going on, Kora was rushing about talking to people, rapidly checking that doors were secure, and verifying no one was hiding in any of the side chambers or under any tables. When she had finished her circuit, she reported back to Bolst. “Most accounted for, some of em bolted before we sealed everything so we’re not certain, but I think we’re good.” It was clear from her tone; the ones that bolted were going to be having a bad day once Kora caught up to them.

  From her idle place off to the side, Kori observed the chaos. She knew that this was her fault, not only hers, but without her it wouldn’t be happening. The thought of causing all this couldn’t really upset her though, not while the little glowing vials of liquid fire bathed her in their warm light. No matter what else was going on around her, that was enough to make it worth it. That wasn’t to say they didn’t terrify her, but the longer she held them, the less frightened she was of them.

  She checked them each regularly as the minutes ticked by, each of them warm to various degrees consistent with the order that they’d been made in. Before long the first three had cooled to barely warmer than her own scales. The final flask though, that one wasn’t cooling nearly as quickly. Something about mixing it in the sealed container or letting it settle before she released her hold on the mana had made it different than the others. Made it better than the others.

  The first to arrive, banging on the barred gate before he was let in, was Elder Blonc, with several of his warriors alongside him. Kori had seen him plenty of times before, but never ready for a fight. The burly man was clad in armour of overlapping metal plates, his helmet even covering his horns in burnished metal that ended in sharpened points. The sword strapped diagonally across his back equally as tall as he was, which still only put it at a little more than a meter. The blade as wide as both his hands side by side and a wicked spike at the end of the pummel.

  Marching in behind his warriors were an equal number of mages, most of them in the brown robes that signify they had an affinity for earth magic, the most useful when there was an accident or a cavern needed to be sealed off, but the red of a fire mage could be spotted in the crowd and the Kore’s green robes contrasted Ylst’s white in the rear.

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  Were it not for the circumstances, Kori would be happy to see another of her adoptive siblings present. Nearly half of their little family in one place, and Korse likely already on his way.

  Loud orders were yelled and the assembled warriors and mages spread out into the chamber, looking for danger and verifying all the gates for a second time. As the mage in the red robes began to approach Kori, clearly the contents of the vials having attracted his interest, he was quickly told off by Bolst to stay clear until everything was secure.

  It didn’t take much longer for the aforementioned father figure to himself appear. The man, clearly not one to have raised his physical ability scores beyond what his race had provided, huffing and panting as he made his way into the room. Kore tried to give him a welcoming smile, but it was uncertain if Korse even noticed his presence, let alone the gesture. He barrelled forward towards the now off-limits lab, panic on his face when he saw Bolst and Kora standing together near the door without his youngest charge. “What happened this time? Where is she?” His distress plain to everyone who can see him as he tries to find out what happened to Kori.

  “Calm down Korse. It’s okay.” Bolst tries to settle the other Elder, “She’s fine. Take a breath.” His placating tone having some of the desired effect. Though if only in taking him down from absolute hysteria to just run of the mill panic. Bolst placed his hand on Korse’s shoulder before he continued, “She’s right over there,” Pointing off to where Kori sat, “But you can’t go over there right now.”

  Pulling against the grip on his shoulder as he saw her, “What do you mean I can’t go over there? Let go of me Bolst!” His lacking physicality again showing itself in his inability to extricate himself.

  He continued to struggle until Kora stepped between himself and Kori. “It’s alright Korse. She’s doing an important job right now and we can’t disturb her until we can secure what she’s holding somewhere safe.” Pointing out the still slightly luminous vials in her possession.

  Calming down at his daughter’s words, Korse spies the orange glow now that it’s been pointed out to him. “What the scale are those?”

  It’s then that Blonc and Ylst, with Kore in tow, arrive at the small group and Ylst is the first to respond. “That’s what I would like to know. Why is the youngling handling something glowing with enough fire mana that I can see it from here?”

  Her words hit Korse like a slap to the face as he turned on Bolst, “What the scale did you do? She was supposed to be working on more of that healing stuff!”

  “Give me a few minutes Korse. Once we get everything settled down, we can discuss what happened. Preferably in a calm manner, please?” Bolst pleads with him. “Blonc, could you reinforce the guard on the lab, no one, and I mean not even Ortik, goes in without my say so.”

  The smile he received back from Blonc was honestly a little disturbing. Despite this being the middle of a crisis, the grin that his helmet did nothing to disguise was akin to Kori’s own when she saw the lab for the first time. It was clear that he was going to enjoy this way too much. He quickly ordered two of his troops to take over guard duty, telling Otr to go back to the yard.

  Ruining his fun just a little, Ylst offers her own suggestion that would make things easier, have her earth mages seal the door. Thankfully for Blonc, that suggestion gets turned down. At least for the time being. “Maybe once we settle things. If anything happens, we may need to get in quickly, so I don’t want to take that step yet.”

  Continuing to listen in on their conversation from her corner, it’s not like they were far away and they were definitely not being quiet, Kori heard as more orders fly about directing where things went as armloads of materials were carried out from the testing hall. Seeing the slow progress, another conversation with Blonc took place. This one left him with an unpleasant grimace, before his remaining warriors trotted off and started carrying much larger loads of things out of the room, she knew he hated it when his troops were used as pack-mules.

  When Bolst spotted one of them rolling a full-on barrel out of the room he yelled, a little bit of panic in his voice, “Get that out of here! I don’t care if you have to prop it up in your own den, just get it out of here! and keep it away from any open flames.” While she didn’t know for certain, Kori had a good guess as to what that barrel was full of and she agreed, that stuff needed to be as far away from her imbued version of it as possible.

  It wasn’t much longer before a worker called out the all clear on the testing room, a call that was verified by Kora who took several minutes in the room before confirming it as such. Bolst attempted to walk over to Kori by himself, but the other Elders would not be denied, Especially Korse. In the end they all followed along in his wake with the only concession he was successful in that they would allow him to do the talking.

  “Everything alright Kori?”

  “All good!” Her cheerful reply, rather than stressed or terrified as they had expected, catching most of the assembled Elders completely off guard. “They’ve mostly cooled off to the same low warmth, except number four, it stabilized a bit hotter than the others. And I don’t see any loss or change in the mana, so I think they’re stable… Well, as close to stable as they’re getting.” Her unexpectedly thorough report surprising the lot of them, leaving a beaming smile on Bolst’s face as he listened to her.

  “Excellent!” He responded, “Now, we’re going to store these in the test hall until we get this mess sorted out a bit. Hand them here and I’ll take them over.”

  Without pause or deliberation, she quickly denied his command. “Nope, I’ll take them.” Again, the assembled Elders are agog at her cheery response, mostly for the tone that she just used to deny the one nominally in charge right now. “I know them better than you. If anything changes, I’ll be the one to spot it.” hesitating for a moment while looking at Ylst, “Besides, you can’t even sense mana, can you?” When he shook his head ‘no’ she continued, “Then definitely not. If anything is going to go wrong, that’d be it.” For all the build up and suspense around it, it took her all of three minutes to calmly walk across the room and deposit the stand of vials on the single remaining table in the now barren testing hall.

  The hall itself was odd, it had several movable walls made of thin stone all pushed off to the side and even stone planks that looked like they could be fitted as a ceiling in a pile beside them. It looked like a bunch of building blocks, except full sized. It didn’t take Kori long to puzzle out that the room was intended to test out new trap designs, with the trappers able to simulate various tunnel sizes and intersection types by using the blocks. She had to admit, it was ingenious.

  With her volatile cargo deposited in its temporary home, Kori gave it a final appraising glance and when she saw that nothing had changed, she turned and calmly walked out. The slam of the gate the moment she was clear however, that was not a calm thing. As she rejoined the group of Elders, now up one Har, another slam echoed through the chamber that sent all of the trappers diving to the floor while the remaining kobolds stared at them questioningly. Thankfully the new sound was not a detonation, but a certain Spiritcaller having been a touch overzealous in his entrance. As Ortik approached the gathering, watching as Bolst and Kora retook their position standing amongst them, his eyes settled on his former apprentice.

  “Of course, she’s here…” Sighing heavily as he spots Kori, “What the scale did she do now?”